One hour and fifteen minutes to go.....

At last, the wait is over. Wel....almost! There is just one hour and fifteen minutes to go until the Steven Moffatt/Matt Smith era begins. So, enjoy!!

It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for....

As it is often said on New Year's Day, out with the old, and in with the new. For Doctor Who fans, this phrase has particular resonance, as the pics below demonstrate.

We knew it was coming, but the four knocks came from an unexpected person. If you haven't seen it yet, I won't spoil it for you. The most important thing is that come spring, a new era in 'Doctor Who' will begin, paving the way for more adventures featuring the renegade Time Lord. David Tennant has, in my opinion passed the torch onto the correct person. I've no doubt that the combination of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Steven Moffatt will provide viewers with even more reason for viewers to take the show to their hearts, as previous generations have been doing for the past forty-seven years.

The Doctor is dead....Long live The Doctor!!

The new companion has been revealed....

After months of specualtion as to who was going to be cast alongside Matt Smith in 'Doctor Who', during which names such as Lily Allen, Kelly Brook, Olivia Hallinan and Hannah Murray were suggested as possible candidates, the BBC can now reveal that the actress is 21 year-old Karen Gillan, who previously had a tiny role in "The Fires Of Pompeii". It has yet to be established what character she will be playing. I'll keep you posted on that. Whilst I wish that Rachel Shenton had been considered, I am pleased that the role has gone to an unknown. This will launch Gillan's career, and no mistake!

Now that Hannah Murray is out of the running.....

Who will be the next hot favourite for
The Doctor's new companion, now that
Hannah Murray has said no to the role?



Now that the ex-Skins actress Hannah Murray is out of the running for the new companion of The Doctor, speculation will doubtless be at fever pitch as to the name of the actress who will star alongside Matt Smith, when he debuts as The Doctor in 2010. Further education and acting commitments put paid to any possibility that she might be cast in such a coveted role.

Before Elisabeth Sladen and Billie Piper re-wrote the rules on what it is that makes for a good Dr. Who companion, the female 'sidekicks' were judged as being little more than window dressing, and there was never any news interest in who the next companion, only the actor chosen to play The Doctor could command such speculation from fans of the show. These days, it's different: for 'Whovians', myself being one of them, there is just as much fascination about the next companion as well as the actors who are lined up to play the Time Lord's newest incarnation. This was brought about by Russell T. Davies ensuring the actress playing the companion got equal billing in the opening credits, which in turn helped the fans of the programme to acknowledge that The Doctor's assistant was just an important factor as the sonic screwdriver and the TARDIS. Suddenly, it has become a massive deal to be chosen to be The Doctor's newest fellow time-space dweller, and it now comes with the added bonus of having doors opened onto major roles, instead of smaller, guest character appearances (which aren't the foundations for a continually successful acting career).

This is why I am keen to see an uknown actress get the part. Plus, I still stand by my preference for Rachel Shenton to be cast in this part. I want to see her land a role that has enormous future benefits for her career.

New RTD interview.....

Russell .T. Davies Doctor Who interview: full transcript


Having had the pleasure of sitting down for an hour or so with Russell T Davies, writer and executive producer of Doctor Who, I found myself with a vast amount of material that couldn't be squeezed into the interview that ran in today’s paper. So, given the enormous popularity of the series, I thought it might be interesting to provide an approximate transcript of the interview as a Q&A, slightly tidied up, allowing a bit more of Davies's voice and passion to come through. (Warning: this is very, very long.)

The day before we met, Davies had finished work on the show's Easter Special at 11.30pm in Cardiff, before being driven up to London, arriving at 2am. Shortly after dawn, he was on the BBC breakfast sofa, before squeezing his six-foot-six frame into the chair opposite me, and tucking in to a badly needed breakfast...


So, what are you allowed to tell us about tonight's show?

It's an hour-long special, a great big spectacular - the 60-minute specials are always a chance to spread our wings a bit and flex out. It's a good old roller-coaster adventure, this one - sometimes the stories are very dark, sometimes they're very funny, but this is a great big adventure, a little bit Indiana Jones, a little bit Flight of the Phoenix, a little bit Pitch Black. It's got deserts... these big vistas, it's got a nice scale to it.

You've filmed partly in Dubai - isn't there a danger that shows look a bit strange when they go abroad?

It can be a bit dislocating. Fortunately, Doctor Who is a show that travels from place to place every week. Yes, it's a bit odd when you take a sitcom crew and put them in Spain. But fortunately, Doctor Who just fits - and you know, it was one of my last chances to stretch my wings, because one of the hardest things to do is an alien planet. Frankly, you end up in a quarry or a beach. And I'm quite happy to do things in a quarry or a beach - but this just gives us the size for once. We'd budgeted very wisely, and we actually had the scope to give you an endless horizon.

Whose idea was it?

It was my idea to go into the desert, just because it fitted the story. It was always an option for one of the specials to go abroad - it took an awful lot of planning, but you can do anything if you turn enough great minds to it.

And how was the trip?

I didn't go. You have to account for every penny, and that would have been a waste of a ticket. People often think it's a jolly when you go abroad, but it's a nightmare. Imagine doing your job, but transplanted to a different country, surrounded by strangers, and under pressure of time, and under pressure to make every penny and every second count. It's a horrible thing to do. It's really not fun.

They had to get up at 5.30am to get to the place in the desert where we were filming, there was a sandstorm, so we lost a day's filming almost completely. They certainly weren't in one of those big posh hotels you see on the telly.

So Michelle Ryan's in it...

Yes, she plays an international jewel thief, like you do.

And Lee Evans is an academic?

Malcolm Taylor - he's hilarious. What a nice man, what a lovely man. The bus ends up on an alien planet, and he's left back on Earth, trying to get them home. It's a race against time, really - they're stuck in a desert with a nine and a half ton bus which travelled through a wormhole, but how do you turn it around to get it back? How do you get the engine working? How do you get the wheels out of the sand? And there's a great big swarm approaching...

Given that there's only this, and the next special, and then the final two-parter, have you been thinking of stories that you wish you'd had time to do?

It's funny: I've known I was leaving for a couple of years, so my brain has compensated for that, and stopped thinking of new Doctor Who stories. I wonder what I'd do if I did? I'd be on the phone to Steven Moffat [the new head writer] straight away! Mind you, the last one will be our 60th episode, of which I've written 30-odd [and rewritten more] - everyone's had enough of me, as well.

Also, isn't there the danger you'll be that David Brent figure, forever popping back in to visit?

Yes, you don't want to be that ghost hanging around the production, that voice saying "We didn't do it like that in my day". They should reinvent the way we did things, they should do things completely differently. I just really don't want to hang around, like the past. I never would. Even when they made an American version of Queer as Folk, I had almost nothing to do with it, by choice. I thought I'd made it once, and I didn't want to be haunting the production from afar.

Isn't it very unusual in television, though, to have a writer with such control over what happens?

This is how shows should be run. It's a very American model - it puts the writer at the heart of the production. I think that's healthy on a drama, I think that's the way it should be. It's a model that's going to be used more and more.

Speaking of America, what did you think of Dominic West's comments, that we can't do contemporary drama as well as The Wire?

Like actors know their drama! Bless him, I'm sure he's a very nice man. But to sit there and say that the producers of Cranford don't like making Cranford means he's an idiot, frankly... I know those people, they adore those books, and spent years trying to get that stuff on screen.
We're trapped in this ridiculous, simple argument these days - or at least the media are, I don't imgine this engages my sisters very much - that when something brilliant like The Wire comes along, we then fall into this argument of saying 'The Wire is brilliant, therefore all UK drama is rubbish.' Where did that leap of logic come from? That's a completely invented argument.

But are we better at period pieces?

Some things are good, some things are bad. Some American dramas are rubbish, some British dramas are brilliant. It's as simple as that. You can't look at one drama, and say that it exemplifies some huge cultural gap.

Like Skins vs Friends?

If you were 14 years old, you'd be sitting here saying that Skins is better than The Wire. You really, really would. It's a form of snobbery - someone said in the Guardian this week that you can sit there and look at The Wire and see layers and layers of subtext that don't exist in British dramas. Frankly, I could sit here and talk for three hours on the subject of Steve McDonald in Coronation Street, which I think is one of the finest portraits of a modern man in existence.
But you're not going to get that in a broadsheet newspaper, you're not going to get that among the chattering classes, you're not going to get that among people who like to engage in this very spurious argument, saying one country good, one country bad. It's as simple, and as stupid, as the House of Commons being divided into Right and Left and then them just arguing with each other. If that Chamber was circular, we'd have a better democracy. We'll all keep doing brilliant things, and we'll all keep failing at things. It's a playground argument, isn't it? It's just silly.

Changing the subject slightly, are you annoyed that Kate Winslet didn't thank you in her Oscar speech for providing her big break in Dark Season, your children's serial?

She should have! I'm entirely to blame. How funny. I've met her once or twice, and she still remembers. She was a lovely actor when she was 15, but you could never have dreamt what happened. It just made me feel old.

But apart from a few shows on the BBC, children's TV is in a bit of trouble now, isn't it?

Funding's the problem, really - it's last on everyone's list. On ITV, it's vanished, on Channel 4 it's practically vanished. It's really important - you're talking about the most important audience of all. If you want people to be watching television in 40 years' time, then you should get children watching now. The best children's material isn't just Spot the Dog - although even Spot the Dog can break your heart, in the right book. Children feel stuff more keenly than anyone else does - if you lose your felt pen when you're five, that's the biggest tragedy in the world. But when you're five, you can deal with genuine tragedy, too - death and loss. The Harry Potter books are brilliant at tapping in to that. They're full of grief, and fear of the outside world, and the need for friendship, and stuff like that. It's writ large in children's stuff, and we learn to forget it as we grow old.

What if Doctor Who had been brought back as just a children's show?

It wouldn't be as well funded or as well supported - the day it becomes a children's show, it means that it slips down the agenda. Big and expensive shows come along, like In The Night Garden, but they don't stay for very long. To have appealed only to adults, or only to children, would have limited us, and limited the show. And I think good stuff just works anyway. CS Lewis said - I might have got this wrong - that a book that appeals only to children is not a good book for children, and I've always borne that in mind. We'll do slapstick, and we'll do tragedy - and often the tragedy is for the kids and the slapstick is for the adults.

And what if the BBC had brought it back, but not asked you to run it? Would it have been as good?

I can't answer that... I do think I got it exactly right for the time. For the slot. There were all sorts of things in place that made it work. I was the right person for the job, but right from the start they decided the slot very cleverly - right, this was going out at 7pm on Saturdays, so the whole show was sculpted and aimed like a missile at that slot.

Is it hard to take in how successful it's been?

I don't think I've even got a perspective on it yet. But success is terrifying - all it's done is breed a terror in the entire team that's actually kept our standards up. Every year, you wait to fail. Every year, you wait for the viewing figures to go down - and they haven't, they've gone up. I think it's the only drama in the world that's done that in this past decade. And that's absolutely out of terror, out of not wanting to let the actors down. Changing the cast has also helped enormously, because we've never wanted them to take the blame for the series seeming to be weaker.

And what next? That Queer as Folk-type project you've referred to as "More Gay Men" keeps coming up...

Truth be told, I mentioned it once - it's the clippings, it's the clippings! There are three or four things in the back of my mind, boiling away, and I'm going to take a few months to see which comes to the front of my head first. I'm dying to write about gay men again, but there's other things I want to write as well. One thing is that I would never be so mad as to go for the same audience again [as Doctor Who]... my greatest mistake would be to try to replicate something. Also, it's not the best possible climate to get a television show launched in.

The recession, you mean?

I don't think people have realised how much it's affected the BBC. The BBC hasn't been able to fund itself for decades, actually - everything's made with co-productions, and the co-production money's disappeared, because everyone is stopping funding stuff abroad. Doctor Who needs the money that comes in from the international sales - every drama does - and they're all way down.

But Doctor Who will be OK?

Doctor Who's safe, as it's such a flagship, and so loved. It's a very rare position. Everyone's got to make some savings, but that's natural. But it's going to get hard for everyone. I think it's going to be interesting, though: recession can never stop drama - everyone's going to find more interesting ways to make things with different budgets, and that's going to be quite exciting. I used to make daytime soap operas for £20,000 an episode, and it would be interesting to go back to that.

Speaking of the recession, weren't you ahead of the curve? There's are an awful lot of evil bankers and capitalists in your series of Doctor Who...

I've never used the word evil. Sixty episodes, and the Doctor's never described anyone as evil. Because there's no such thing. I think that's very important.

Even the Master?

He's never been called evil - he's insane, and in need of help. All these people are driven by money, or lust, or greed - you've got to motivate them. Just to say someone is evil stops any understanding of them. I think that's true of murderers, paedophiles - the moment you say someone is evil, you've stopped any understanding of them, or any chance of helping them, or any chance of reducing their numbers. It's a really wrong thing to do. Other writers often put the word 'evil' in, and I absolutely tell them to take it out.

And the anti-capitalist thing?

I was listening to this teenage demonstrator on Radio 1, and she was saying 'Ooh, I'm anti-capitalist'. And I thought, yeah, you're saying that as you're Twittering, and wearing your leather shoes, and then you'll go home and watch telly or go online on your laptop. A lot of those people are kids, basically.

I'm not anti-capitalist - look at me, I'm wearing clothes, I own a house, I'm about to catch a train. That's what capitalism is - it keeps the whole thing running. I'm against greed, any day. But it's not a bad society - it's not that bad. [laughs] There are worse.

[The conversation meanders on to the topic of writers and their profile, and Jonathan Ross's pay packet is brought up - "a daft wage", according to Davies.]

Believe you me, no writer is ever in danger of being paid that much, even though we generate vast sums through how our shows are sold abroad, and repeated, and marketed and merchandised, in a way that a chat show's never going to.

But you do have something of a profile?

The other day I was in Cardiff Bay, and there was a birthday party of 11-year-olds, and they did descend on me. I was quite overwhelmed. But isn't that the greatest compliment? Those kids had the time of their life - of course, some of them didn't know who I was, and were just following what the others were doing. But actually, to be one of the men in Britain that children can walk up to as a complete stranger, is genuinely a proper compliment, and it's an honour. It's one of the privileges of the job, and one of the things I'll really miss. It's brilliant, really brilliant.

Would you be tempted to have a cameo on the show?

I despise writers and producers who do that. [Thumps the table, half-sarcastically] They're doing someone out of work. You get £100 a day as an extra, and they have done someone out of it. I've written letters of complaint about that in the past, to Equity. It's abominable. Plus, who wants to see yourself on telly?

One of the finest bits of advice I was ever given was that a writer shouldn't be leading the parade, they should be watching it. I do get invited to lead charities, or causes, and I have a very hard time turning it down, but I do.

But you are quite political, aren't you?

I've put myself in a situation of having to engage with politics, just by being alive as a gay man in the 20th century... But I think that's just good writing - I can't imagine writing and not including what you think about the world. That's what writing is, it's what being alive is.

It's a process you've explored in A Writer's Tale, your book with Benjamin Cook, in a remarkably open way - emailing him throughout the process.

It was a labour of love. The way people normally write about writing is either very mystical and muselike, or very academic - breaking things down into plot and structure and character. I really wanted to find a way to express how we actually work.

Do you think it's something that can be taught, or something innate?

It literally comes from my very first thoughts, when I was four or five years old. That's why it's very embedded in Doctor Who, because I was watching it at that age. Both my mum and dad taught classics, and the house was full of books about Roman or Greek myths - but I think my instinct to create stories predates being aware of that. It's literally the shape of your brain. Some people are great musicians, some people are great lovers - of course, I'm a great lover, obviously - and I'm good at thinking up stories.

In one of your interviews, someone spoke about your skill for inventing families - but your family seems to have been perfectly happy anyway...

It's just dramatic instinct, I think. I have a mum and dad who were together for 49 years.

And she loved you all so much that she even kept her cancer hidden, didn't she?

She did the right thing - we'd have driven her mad, and made her stay at home and not go out anywhere. Eight years since she died, not one of us has ever been cross about her doing that. Of course, she was right to do that.

I think there's a falsehood that writing comes from suffering. You meet a lot of young writers who worry that they come from a stable background, and you have to tell them that you don't have to have been through the wars as a child.

But going back to the family aspect, you invent these marvellous characters, then do horrible things to them...

You've got to be merciless. People will say 'You love your characters'. But nobody loves their characters that much. If you really write, and you love them, you are the God of them and you can kill them with the click of a finger. It's joyous to do so.

Speaking of God, you seem to have a bit of a Messiah thing in quite a lot of your work, even though you're an atheist...

I think it informs our entire culture. If it's raining, we blame the rain. Even the most atheist one of us. If we're filming something vital in Cardiff, and it's raining, my first instinct is to look at the sky and ask 'Why? Why today?' I'm fascinated by that instinct - we're not an agnostic society, we're still driven powerfully by religion, whether it's believing in chakras and that nonsense or the proper formalised stuff. That instinct to look up and blame something or worship something is fundamental to us, and I'm fascinated by that - because I think it's absolutely wrong.

Looking back, is there anything you wish you'd done differently?

Not really. That's why I'm very wary of going to conventions and the like - I absolutely refuse to nit-pick what we've done to death, because I know it's a magnificent achievement, and I will not join in with that carrion feast on it.

So you don't read the forums online?

My boyfriend does, which is unfortunate, because he doesn't understand fandom, he doesn't belong to it, and says 'You must never have anything to do with these people again.' And I have to explain that it's not the viewers, it's just a very particular subset, usually men, who choose to type online.

That's fair enough - it doesn't mean their opinions don't count. But in a way, it's rather marvellous, because everyone - you, me, everyone - has a little voice saying: 'You're rubbish, everyone's better than you, you're a fraud.' And I've got people who do that for me! So it actually sort of frees me up.

But presumably your colleagues point out things that don't work?

There's this myth that I just hand in a script, and they bow, and everyone goes off and makes it. In fact, I hand in a script and no one even thanks me - they're so used to me being there, they just get on with the problems, and the bits they don't like.

But overall, you're obviously very proud of the results...

They're so good. I think they'll be looked back on as a little golden age of television. I really do. It's brilliant.

Are there any storylines you wished you could do, but didn't have the money?

I've never lacked the money - partly because it's very well-funded, and partly because a programme like this thrives on its imagination. You think on your feet all the time, because although it's a very nice budget, it's still a BBC television budget - you can't have THAT many shots of millions of Daleks. I like to think in 20 years' time they'll go back and remake them in 3-D, CGI effects, and make them even more whizzy. And I bet they will.

A few slightly more random questions now. Do you believe in time travel?

No, not as such... it's so ephemeral isn't it? There are obviously time distortions, if you travel fast enough, light-speed travel and things like that, but no, not really. Not at all.

But if you could go back or forward to any place or time?

I'd go to the future. I can't believe people who'd go to the past - who wants to see what happened in the past? I know what happened in the past! The one thing I'll never know is what happens in the future. Oh my God, I can't bear the fact that I won't be around in 100 years' time. I hate the fact that I'll never know what happens - in 10,000 years, what will we be, and what will this planet be, and where will we be? And I'll never know. It drives me f***ing mad, it really does.
It's terrible not to know.

Is there anyone you wish you'd had on the show?

Whoopi Goldberg, I'd have loved that. Emma Thompson, we tried a couple of times, but she was busy.

And you didn't get Prince Charles...

That wasn't really a surprise, to be honest. But Emma Thompson I would have loved, and I really regret. It's a shame she's not on our tellies more often, because she's such a class act.

And anyone who was mentioned and you just thought 'no'?

Yes - it's a very snobbish process, casting. You find yourself with all sorts of prejudices against all sorts of people. None of whom I will ever name.

Terry Pratchett has just had a couple of streets named after him. Any tribute you'd like?

Cardiff should have its 'Boulevard de Davies'. That would be marvellous. Or just take the 'T' - 'Boulevard de T'. (Pause) I'm not really asking for this - don't put that in the article: Russell Davies said 'Please will Cardiff name a street after me'.

Tell me five things we never knew about David Tennant or Michelle Ryan.

Truth be told, I haven't spend that much time with the cast. Even though I love David to death, we've only had dinner together about three times in our entire careers.

Should there be a Russell T Davies action figure?

No! Shut up. It wouldn't sell at all. I think a few people would stick pins into it, or throw darts at it. But I'm too tall - it would throw every other doll out of scale.

Given that you've worked a lot in Manchester and Cardiff, are you happy about the BBC moving some production out of London and up to Salford? How do you think it will work?

When I worked at Granada, it became a very different place once the heads of department refused to live in Manchester. That was a very great loss, and a very great shame. If you were being paid £100,000 to a head of department, you should have been in Manchester, and I think people should have to do that with Salford. We've got to make sure that the money - the controllers who commission the shows - is coming to Salford, and not you to them. You have to do it properly, and not just be a satellite. Frankly, the rest of us have to trudge to London - I'm very lucky, I only have to do it about once a month, but some people have to do it two or three times a week. In fact, of all the awards I've one, the one I'm proudest of is "Industry Player of the Year" at the Edinburgh Television Festival. I'm not quite sure what that title means, but it was a great compliment. For a writer to win that was enormously gratifying - I was enormously pleased that you didn't have to be sitting in Soho House to win that sort of thing.

You're a gay guy from Wales educated at state school who got to Oxford and had a fantastic career - in a way, you're the best of what Britain can be, aren't you?

I am! Remember that! But has there been less prejudice as the years went on? It's always been alright, to be honest - I've never been bothered over it. Also, I don't think it was that unusual, to be honest - TV writers, you know? The one thing about being an actor or a writer is you're allowed to get away with murder - you can be a serial killer, and if the script is solid or you're a good actor they'll let you in. Even though I'm very out, and very loud, you can imagine that there's still prejudice. But people can hate me for other reasons - there are people who call me a bastard, or a lucky bastard. Mind you, that's also why I like to be interviewed, the gay thing. I don't care what everyone else thinks, but I do care if you're 12 years old and look at me and think: 'I can do that.' You can come from anywhere, and be of any sexuality, and do whatever you want in life.

Finally, moving back to Doctor Who, have you had to co-ordinate much with Steven Moffat when he takes over?

We talk a lot, but it's a very clean break. He needed to know where he was picking it up from.
Anything you'd hope for? If I was working on series five of Doctor Who, I would bring back Michelle Ryan at the drop of a hat. I think she's absolutely glorious. But I doubt that he will - he doesn't need to pick up old characters of mine, although he might bring back some old monsters. He's just brilliant at creating stuff, and needs to make it absolutely his.

Is there anything you can tell us about your last episode yet?

People already know that Bernard Cribbins is back. He's in it as a proper companion, for the full two episodes. And to have the Doctor with Wilfred at his side is one of my best decisions, ever. I'm so pleased with it - it's just lovely.

And there's those paparazzi shots of what looks like John Simm - is it him?

Maybe. It's not quite as easy to guess what's happening as you think - there's nightmare sequences, and layers of fantasy, because the Doctor's coming to the end of his time. It's quite interesting to watch things being filmed, and think: 'Oh, I can see what that would look like...'

You've had him save the Earth, the universe, the multiverse... how do you provide a fitting send-off for David's Doctor?

Don't worry. I have. I knew I'd write David's last episode one day, so I've had this tucked away. You do think: 'How can the stakes get bigger?' And they do. They really do. I don't mean just in terms of spectacle, but in terms of how personal it gets for him. It's such an honour to write for that man, and I really mean that. He's the loveliest man. SUCH a good actor. When it comes to the last episode, there is no way I would let him down.

Finally - really finally this time - are the Daleks the best villains in the world?

Yes. Better than anything, ever. Better than Darth Vader. Better than Satan. Better than words. I love them. My greatest joy is them working again, after all these years. Everyone said we should redesign them - everyone. Literally everyone said: 'Here's a modern version of a Dalek.' And it's the one thing I dug my heels in about, purely on instinct. It looks like a good decision now, but felt like madness at the time. I said you can beef it up, you can make it look better, but you're not changing the design - not just the design, but the proportions, the distance between the slats, the relationship between the eye and the sucker. I literally stood there like a wall, holding back the flood. And I was right. Thank God! There was a little voice saying 'You're an idiot', so the fact I listened to the voice saying 'You're right' was a miracle. And when you see the kids clutching the toys, and wearing the T-shirts - they love them.

New era...New Doctor....

The Eleventh Doctor - Matt Smith

Last night, fans of 'Doctor Who' got to see 'who' is going to take over from David Tennant. He's 26, is called Matt Smith, and has the right look for the character. Previously, my hopes had been pinned on the producers considering Robert Webb, but I can easily see why he was chosen. Just like his predecessors, Smith has that alien quality, particularly in the eyes. Moffatt's view of what attributes are needed to secure such a sought-after role has been justified by the casting of this little-known actor. Tom Baker was once a barely-known character actor, who had never been in a leading role in either film or television, and yet he ended up playing The Doctor for seven years. I think Smith will make the role his own, just as the past ten actors endeavoured to do.

As for the new female companion, no official announcement regarding the casting has occurred, but here is my choice - Rachel Shenton.

She can do comedy...

.... and she can do drama.

Like Matt Smith, Shenton isn't a household name, which means they aren't bringing the weight of established stardom to the programme, which will help it to survive until the day that The Doctor reaches the end of his thirteen lives, or even - dare I say it - beyond that point. Having seen her showreel piece 'Casey', I am convinced that she has the talent to make viewers invest emotionally in her performance. I only hope that she is considered for such a role. It would open significant doors for her in her acting career.

The Eleventh Doctor and his new female companion...

Precisely as I predicted, David Tennant will be leaving at the end of the final of the four specials for 2009. This means that we will see the eleventh incarnation of The Doctor appear in the first series to feature Steven Moffatt at the helm. This is also likely to mean we will get a new female companion, leading to speculation as to who will step into Tennant and Tate's shoes. With this in mind, here are my choices for The Doctor and his new female co-traveller - Robert Webb ('Peep Show') and Rachel Shenton ('Waterloo Road'/'Holby City'). See you again soon.